


boy when you know, you'll know (and i know)

by iphigenias



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Season 7 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 01:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15425679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: "It was… I wished…” Shiro trails off and looks at Adam like he’s memorising something. Adam shifts under the strange, though not unwelcome, weight of his gaze.“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, man.”“No, that’s not it,” Shiro says, then sighs. He closes his eyes, and takes a breath like he did before blowing out the candle. When he opens his eyes he releases it and says, “I wished for a kiss.”





	boy when you know, you'll know (and i know)

**Author's Note:**

> season 7 spoilers, etc. etc. 
> 
> this was going to be part of a longer fic but i really couldn't be bothered writing it so here, have some pointless fluff! title is from vance joy's 'fire and the flood'

“You better not still be studying for that stupid test,” Adam says as he nudges the door to his and Shiro’s shared room open with his hip. “And you better be hungry because I broke into the kitchens for—” Adam freezes at the tableau laid out before him, birthday cupcake and its precariously placed lit candle halted mid-air in their trajectory to Shiro’s desk. Their intended recipient is fast asleep in the chair, his head down on the desk and stuck fast to a stack of papers covered in Shiro’s neat, blue pen handwriting. He’s snoring slightly, and the papers quiver at every exhale. Adam can’t help but smile at the sight; he can’t help but smile at Shiro in general these days, but there’s something about seeing him like this, soft and relaxed and so alike to the fifteen year-old he’d made friends with their first day at the Garrison.

Adam shuts the door gently behind him and places the cupcake on the nightstand, careful not to disturb its tiny flame. He hesitates. God knows Shiro needs his sleep, and Adam probably shouldn’t leave a lit candle in a room with a sleeping teenager, but if he blows it out, he has no way to light it again unless he sneaks back into the kitchen. Before he has to make his decision, however, Shiro stirs, sitting up in the chair and blinking owlishly at Adam in a way that makes Adam’s heart clench in his chest. He smiles and sits on the bed facing Shiro.

“Hey, man. Didn’t mean to wake you. Looks like study finally got the best of you, though, huh?”

Shiro rubs a hand over his tired face, dislodging the papers that had stuck fast to his cheek. “I only closed my eyes for a second. I was… looking at something on emergency procedure. I guess I didn’t realise how tired I was.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Adam shakes his head fondly. “You’ve been working yourself to the bone studying for this exam, man. You’ll ace it for sure.”

“Maybe,” Shiro allows, but he’s smiling. He squints at the cupcake where it’s still sitting on the nightstand. “Is that a birthday cake?” he asks, smile growing even wider.

“It’s a birthday _cupcake_ ,” Adam corrects. “I had to sneak into the kitchens to make this you know. Risked my sterling reputation!”

“Uh huh,” Shiro says, still grinning and clearly not buying it.

“I did! Well, okay, Laila came with me and actually baked it, but I stuck the candle in! And lit it with the chef’s matches! I swear.”

“Well,” Shiro says, considering. “If _Laila_ made it, I guess it’s okay to eat.”

“Hey!” Adam says indignantly as Shiro laughs, but hands Shiro the plate anyway. “You gotta make a wish first. Not every day you turn eighteen.”

“True,” Shiro says quietly, looking at Adam for a moment before turning to the cupcake. He takes a breath, closes his eyes, and blows out the candle. Adam had almost bought one of those trick candles that keeps relighting, but thought he’d stay serious this time. Like he said, eighteen was a pretty big deal, especially with the officer’s exam coming up. (He’ll prank Shiro on his next birthday—he’s already got it half-planned out.)

“So I know you’re not supposed to say…” Adam begins when Shiro opens his eyes.

“You mean the wish?” When Adam nods, Shiro smiles wryly. “That’s true. But I think… I think in this case, telling you might actually make it come true.”

Adam blinks, surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was… I wished…” Shiro trails off and looks at Adam like he’s memorising something. Adam shifts under the strange, though not unwelcome, weight of his gaze.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, man.”

“No, that’s not it,” Shiro says, then sighs. He closes his eyes, and takes a breath like he did before blowing out the candle. When he opens his eyes he releases it and says, “I wished for a kiss.”

Adam feels as though the air is sucked out of the room, because it’s suddenly hard to breathe. His hand, where it had been resting on the bed next to his thigh, automatically clenches around the edge of the mattress. Shiro is still looking at him in that strange, new way, and Adam finds that he can’t make himself look anywhere _but_ Shiro. “That’s…” he says softly, before clearing his throat and wetting his lips. “That’s not very specific,” he finishes, still looking at Shiro, who smiles quietly at the words.

“I know,” he says, and his hands are twisting in his lap in a way Adam knows is his nerves. “I was hoping you could help me out with that.”

Adam’s throat is dry. Though he’s sitting on the bed, and _knows_ he’s sitting on the bed, his body suddenly feels light, as if all the gravity has abandoned him and he’s floating, flying, three feet off the ground. “I’d like that,” he says quietly, and Shiro’s small smile becomes even smaller, but brighter somehow, more lovely. Adam could stare at Shiro for days, has been doing so for the past three years, but it still feels brand new, like every moment he is looking at Shiro something in their gaze is changing, is growing, is flowering like the lilies Adam’s mother keeps along their garden path, opening and opening and opening to Shiro—who is somehow suddenly closer, who is sitting on the bed beside Adam now, and he doesn’t know how he missed that when he’s been staring at Shiro this whole time. Shiro is close, so close Adam can see the shine of the overhead light in Shiro’s pupils, which expand ever so slightly as he leans in again, and leans in, and leans in, just as Adam leans in too, and then there’s no space between them because their lips are pressed together and they’re kissing. Shiro tastes like the coffee he had that morning and Adam kisses the bitterness from his mouth, so unlike the sugared and creamed coffee Adam himself prefers but suddenly not so bad as he always thought it would taste. It’s sweeter, somehow—though maybe that’s just Shiro.

When they pull apart it’s by mere inches, and Adam can still feel Shiro’s breath against his face. He feels like he’s trembling all over. Shiro leans forward so their foreheads are touching, and gently removes Adam’s glasses from where they’re digging into his nose. He places them carefully on the desk, folded perfectly with the lenses facing up, and Adam could kiss him again just for that. “Shiro,” he breathes out softly. “Shiro, I—”

“Don’t,” Shiro says suddenly, and Adam sits back in mortification.

“Oh, um, sorry, I thought—”

“No, no, that’s not—” Shiro reaches out and grabs Adam’s hands from where they’d retracted from the bed into his lap. “That’s not what I meant. Don’t… don’t call me Shiro. Everyone calls me that. You’re… you’re not everyone.” He looks at Adam again like his heart is suddenly laid out and dissected before them; like Adam could take it and crush it and do anything he likes with it because it’s his to own. Adam swallows heavily.

“Takashi,” he whispers, and Shiro’s eyes fall closed at the sound. “Takashi,” he says, and it tastes like benediction. He licks his lips. “Would it be too much to hope that you wished for more than one kiss?”

Shiro opens his eyes and smiles warmer than the sun. “I wished for as many as you would give me,” he replies, and Adam can’t help but laugh.

“That’s a lot of kisses,” he says, reaching forward to find Shiro’s hands and linking their fingers loosely together. “You sure you can handle that?”

“I’ll give it my best shot,” Shiro says, tugging Adam forward until their lips almost meet again. Adam presses their linked hands against Shiro’s chest to stop him from leaning in.

“I almost forgot,” he whispers into the breath of air between them. “Happy birthday, Takashi.”

This time, when Shiro kisses him—when Takashi kisses him—it doesn’t feel like flying. Takashi’s hand is an anchor, tethering Adam to Earth, and it feels as if all the stars and planets and galaxies out there in the universe, both discovered and undiscovered, known and unknown, those celestial bodies Adam has dedicated his life to studying, to someday journeying to—those suns and asteroids and solar systems could never compare, would always fall short, to the very celestial body before him right now. This time, when Adam kisses him, Takashi doesn’t taste like coffee, bitter or sweet, but like stardust, and starlight—bright and blinding and all-encompassing, all-consuming, the entirety of space condensed and thrust inside the body of the boy kissing him.

“Takashi,” Adam says when they pull apart again. _Takashi_ , his heart sings. He rests their linked hands on the bed between them and leans in once more, dizzy with the knowledge that he can do this now, he really can, lean in and kiss Takashi whenever he wants, for however many times he wishes.


End file.
